oh no!

I forgot about a write-at-home assignment for orgo that was due last Wednesday. Man---really have to kill that test tomorrow. Anyhow, I remembered the assignment today, and turned in my writing anyways. Chemistry assignments will always have a special place in my blog. Prompt: How would you explain to your parents the cool things you learned in class about radicals and radical inhibitors?  How do free radical inhibitors work?  How does their structure relate to how they work?  Why are radicals “unstable” and why are they related to the cause of premature aging?  Feel free to expound on the relevance of free radicals in our daily lives. The Ring, a hit 2002 horror movie, focused on a strange videotape that cursed anyone who watched it to die in 7 days. The only way to prevent death was to show the video to someone else before the week was over--thereby transferring the curse to him or her. Radicals are much like that videotape. When a radical is formed, it can propagate itself in a manner similar to the chain-letter system of the videotape. Unattended to, radicals can also lead to death. However, unlike the cursed videotape, radicals are not supernatural, and fixes exist. To understand how to deal with radicals, a chemical understanding of what radicals are and what they do are needed. Radicals are molecules with unpaired electrons. They’re usually formed when a weak bond between two atoms is split by radiation, such as UV light. Because electrons like to be paired, radicals react quickly with any nearby molecule, stealing an electron. The new molecule, however, because it lost an electron, has an unpaired electron of its own and is now a new radical. Radicals pass on radical behavior in this chain reaction, and in living systems, cell death can result. Continued exposure to radicals makes skin looks older, as if it had been exposed to UV light for longer than it really has been. If a radical affects a cell’s DNA in the right gene, cancer results. If radicals are produced in one’s neurons, the neurons commit suicide, and Alzheimer’s disease can arise. In order to stop free radical chain reactions, a radical inhibitor is needed. When a free radical chain reaction hits a radical inhibitor, the radical inhibitor becomes a relatively stable radical. Usually this stability is achieved through resonance (or delocalization) of the unpaired electron. The radical inhibitor can then attach to another free radical, and the two unpaired electrons bond to form one stable molecule. So where does one find radical inhibitors? Hint: they’re better known as antioxidants—yes, the same antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables! Vitamin C and E are the two most well known radical inhibitors. So now you know what radicals are, what they do, and how to stop them. And who knows, maybe the next time you’re watching The Ring, and a chill crawls up your spine, try throwing down a tall, cold glass of vitamin C-packed orange juice. It could help save your life ;-)